A Thoroughly Modern Princess Page 21

  “Aww, don’t go, baby!”

  “I have to go. And stop calling me baby!”

  “Mind if I have some of these?” He was nothing if not resilient, reaching for a box of Frango Mints that had been sent from Marshall Field’s by one of her colleagues at the Chicago affiliate.

  “Have them all,” she called over her shoulder, and muttered, “But it’ll take a lot more than that to sweeten your breath.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked, munching.

  “To Verdunia. To the palace.” She jerked open the closet door and began yanking hangers along the pole, looking for something suitable to wear. “The princess has come back, and I suspect she and Prince Remi are going to go ahead with the wedding.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” he said. “I hear she’s about as in love with Prince Remi as I am with a visit to the dentist.”

  Which might go a long way toward explaining his halitosis problem, Debi thought, stooping by the bed to retrieve her black pumps.

  Aloud, she asked Dolph, “Oh, really? How do you hear that?”

  “I dated her sister. Not the fat one. The other one.”

  “Princess Josephine?”

  He nodded, popping another mint into his mouth.

  “What did she tell you about Princess Emmaline and Prince Remi?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” he said, closing his beefy hand around her wrist and pulling her toward the bed.

  “I’m not that curious.” Debi extricated herself from his grasp and rushed for the shower, her mind racing.

  She had been anticipating a tragic end to this fairy tale—not the news that Princess Emmaline was alive and well and back in Verdunia.

  She could have gotten considerable mileage out of a royal funeral, and she had nearly perfected her on-camera tears. Then again, people cried at weddings, too. Especially when the bride had vanished for a couple of weeks before returning home to live happily ever after with her royal groom.

  Happily ever after.

  Yeah, right.

  Debi Hanson was no expert on men, but she would bet her surgically lifted ass that Prince Remi’s on-camera plea to his missing bride hadn’t been any more heartfelt than Debi’s own emotional reaction.

  Could the sophisticated princess possibly have been naive enough to have fallen for his act?

  Why else would she be back in Verdunia?

  And what on earth had brought her to New York in the first place?

  What . . . or who?

  As she shed her clothes and stepped into the shower, Debi narrowed her eyes shrewdly.

  She needed a source. Somebody with the inside scoop on the royal courtship—and anything else that might have been going on in the would-be bride’s life.

  Hmm.

  Debi stopped soaping her nude body, poked her head from beneath the steaming spray, and called seductively. “Dolph . . . oh, Dolph? Could you come here for a moment?”

  Eleven

  Grandfather kept Granger waiting more than an hour.

  He supposed he deserved it, really. The old man must know why he was there, and obviously had no intention of making this easy for him.

  As he waited, Granger paced the length of the study, stopping every so often to gaze absently at a title on one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves or at his own reflection in the French doors that faced the back of the house and the sea.

  Through the open window, he could hear the sea crashing in the distance. It was a sound that had lulled him to sleep on childhood summer nights. Now, however, the rhythmic surf seemed only to underscore the intensity of his inner turmoil. So did the ticking of the mantel clock, which seemed to grow more insistent with every minute.

  A rare, endangered Hyacinth macaw occasionally squawked from its perch in a nearby cage. Its round, deep brown eyes seemed to bore reproachfully into Granger, as though the bird sensed the woe this interloper had caused its master.

  At last Granger heard a welcome sound from somewhere above: the old elevator beginning its creaking descent to the first floor. It had been installed by the first Granger Lockwood, who had built the house back when the Astors and the Vanderbilts were trying to outdo each other’s Newport cottages.

  Seaside Serenade—with its own ballroom, gym, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, Japanese water gardens, aviary, and yes, elevator—had taken its place alongside Marble House, Belcourt Castle, the Breakers, and other famed summer residences.

  Granger shoved his hands into the pockets of his linen trousers and rocked nervously back on his heels, listening to the elevator grind to a halt in the adjacent hallway.

  His broken hip long since healed, Grandfather was perfectly capable of using the stairs to descend from his second floor suite, but he insisted on the elevator whenever he was trying to prove a point to Granger.

  The point being, I’m old and frail and you are making my life even more difficult than it already is.

  Granger steeled himself against a tide of guilt as his grandfather hobbled into the room.

  “Is your hip bothering you, Grandfather?” Granger asked, mustering concern.

  The old man ignored his question and gruffly posed one of his own. “How did you get here?”

  “The bus.”

  Granger Lockwood II recoiled as though Granger had told him that he had hitched a ride with a serial killer.

  The macaw ruffled its brilliant blue feathers indignantly.

  “I see. And how are you planning to get back to New York?” Grandfather asked, sitting heavily in a leather wingback beside the marble fireplace.

  It was Granger’s turn to ignore the question.

  He took a deep breath. “Grandfather,” he began.

  “Sit.”

  Granger sat.

  “Grandfather, I said some things last time that were a bit rash. Please accept my apology . . . and my request.”

  “Request?”

  “I’d like to return to Lockwood Enterprises,” Granger said in a rush. “And to my apartment in Lockwood Tower.”

  There was a long pause.

  Granger stared at the floor, and then glanced up to see his grandfather looking pleased, if not smug.

  “Then you have come to your senses and realized that you want to go back to the way things were,” the old man said. “Is that it?”

  No! No, that wasn’t it.

  Granger didn’t want to go back to the way things were. He didn’t want to be his grandfather’s flunky again.

  How could he have any self-respect when the old man, for all his talk about Granger being the future CEO of Lockwood Enterprises, refused to relinquish the slightest bit of power?

  “I thought we could compromise,” he heard himself tell his grandfather.

  “Compromise?”

  Granger nodded. “You always talk about my future. How I’ll take over the company one day. But that isn’t going to happen as long as you’re around, is it?”

  “Are you saying that you wish me dead and buried?” Grandfather asked in horror.

  “No! I’m saying that I wish you would retire. Or at least semi-retire. Or at the very least, that you would allow me some dignity and the chance to have a real say in what goes on with the company.”

  “Retirement would kill me,” Grandfather said staunchly.

  “I doubt that. You would have time to enjoy yourself for a change.”

  “I do enjoy myself. I golf, I travel, I dine out . . .”

  “But you only do those things when they’re tied into business,” Granger pointed out. “You never do anything for pleasure.”

  “My pleasure is business.”

  Okay. That much was true.

  “And I have my birds.”

  Also true.

  So Grandfather had his birds, his business, his billions. Everything an old man’s stilted heart could possibly desire.

  Granger sighed. “As long as you’re in charge, Grandfather, there is nothing fulfilling for me in Lockwood Enterprises.”

 
“Oh really? So you don’t find fulfillment in your salary, and job stability, and having a roof over your head, and knowing that you’re carrying on the Lockwood tradition?”

  “I do. But I need more.”

  “So you said. And you expected to find it in a dilapidated fifth-floor walk-up? And by selling out to Anderson Lowell?”

  “How did you—?”

  “I know more than you think,” the old man said cryptically.

  Which undoubtedly implied that he had used his money and connections to keep tabs on Granger.

  Did that mean he knew about Emmaline, too?

  Granger gazed at his grandfather’s face, trying to read his mind.

  No. Grandfather couldn’t possibly have found out about Emmaline, Granger decided. He had kept her well disguised, and he knew that Brynn, for all her social gallivanting, wouldn’t have told a soul.

  But what about the parade of deliverymen who had been in and out of the apartment? Emmaline had sworn she hid in the bathroom every time, but . . .

  “If you know so much about me,” Granger said, shoving aside his uncertainty, “then you know that I’m trying to do the right thing here. The honorable thing. And that I would hope—no, expect—you to do the same.”

  “If taking you back is the honorable thing, then you will find your expectations met,” Grandfather replied.

  Granger exhaled. So that was it. He could have his job, his apartment, his life back.

  But . . .

  “Back on whose terms?” he found himself asking. “Mine, or yours?”

  “On my terms, of course,” Grandfather said, all but brushing his wrinkled palms together briskly, as though there was no room for debate.

  Granger nodded bleakly. “Yes. That’s what I thought.”

  Morning sickness and sheer exhaustion got the best of Emmaline after she had been welcomed by Tabitha, followed by her sleepy, relieved parents.

  “Where are Genevieve and Josephine?” Emmaline had asked the king and queen, both of whom had hugged her profusely.

  “Genevieve had to fly to London for a breakfast meeting with the prime minister’s wife,” the queen said. “And Josephine must be sound asleep—she didn’t answer the knock on her door.”

  No surprise there. Emmaline’s younger sister enjoyed her beauty rest immensely.

  “And Remi?” she had asked tentatively.

  “He, too, is still presumably in bed in the guest quarters,” Papa had said.

  Now, at last, Emmaline had received word that Prince Remi was ready to confront her. The sun was coming up, streaking the Verdunian sky pink and gold. It was a breathtaking sight. But all she wanted to do was draw the heavy draperies, crawl into her old bed, and sleep for the next week.

  Instead, she found herself in a small parlor located in a quiet, private corner of the palace, coming face-to-face with the man she had betrayed and jilted.

  She rose when he entered the room.

  He looked the same as always: handsome, impeccably dressed, and fresh from an invigorating shower. She found herself wondering whether Granger would have stopped to shower, shave, and don neatly pressed street attire if he had spent so many days apart from the woman he professed to love.

  She doubted that. And she found herself irrationally jealous of the woman who eventually captured Granger’s elusive heart.

  Emmaline had no doubt that some enchanting female eventually would do just that. For all his faults, Granger had proven that he wasn’t necessarily destined to spend the rest of his life as the footloose, spoiled playboy she had assumed he would always be.

  Already she was able to glimpse someone other than that man.

  She suspected that it was a facade; that somewhere deep down inside, Granger longed for stability. For the family he had never had. For love.

  But Emmaline couldn’t help thinking that simply longing for those things didn’t mean that a person could actually find—much less sustain—them.

  She recalled one of the few occasions they had talked about their childhoods. Granger had wistfully commented that she was lucky to have had loving parents and sisters, while he had grown up an only child, an orphan. For all his millions—indeed, billions—he had lacked fulfillment of a child’s most basic needs.

  He was never nurtured—only groomed, she realized in wondrous dismay, overcome by the notion of Granger as a lost little boy.

  In their time together, she had never allowed herself to fully contemplate his past—or his vulnerability. She was too busy feeling sorry for herself, too preoccupied with her own discomfort—and his shortcomings.

  Well, there certainly are enough of them, she reminded herself defensively, as Prince Remi strode toward her now.

  Would he take her back once he knew the whole story?

  For a moment she thought he was going to sweep her into his arms. But he didn’t, despite the fact that they were alone, behind closed doors.

  “Welcome home, Emmaline,” Remi said tersely, stopping a few feet away from where she stood beside the sofa.

  “Thank you, Remi.”

  There was so much more to say . . .

  Yet there was nothing more to say.

  This was not the emotional reunion she had convinced herself was possible. Try as she might, she couldn’t muster anything other than mild affection at the sight of her fiancé after being apart for so long.

  “What were you doing in New York?” he finally asked, providing a reprieve of sorts as she searched for the right words—or any words.

  “I was . . .” She trailed off, riddled with uncertainty.

  “Hiding?”

  She was caught off guard by a flicker of amusement in his otherwise somber gaze.

  “I suppose I was hiding, yes,” she admitted.

  “From me? Or from your royal duty?”

  “A bit of both, I would say.” She raised her chin and looked him in the eye. “I am truly sorry, Remi. If there had been any other way . . . well, I never meant for it to happen.”

  He seemed to ponder that.

  She waited, holding her breath.

  “How on earth did you pull it off?” he finally asked.

  “Hiding?”

  “The escape itself. You vanished from the wedding coach, which would seem an impossible feat.”

  “Yes, it would seem that way, wouldn’t it?”

  He was waiting.

  She hesitated.

  Explaining the mechanics of her disappearance would mean bringing Granger into the plot, and she wasn’t sure that she was prepared to open that door yet.

  Then again, she couldn’t keep it closed indefinitely. Now was as good a time as any to have that conversation. They were alone, and they had a decision to make—rather, Remi had a decision to make. Emmaline was fully aware that her fate was now quite out of her own hands.

  She looked at Remi.

  He pressed the issue. “Surely you didn’t manage to flee the country entirely on your own. That would seem quite unlikely, unless you suddenly sprouted wings and flew away.”

  Wings.

  She was thrust back to that June day in the rose garden, with Granger. She had teasingly told him that she had wings, and he had called her a fairy princess.

  If only.

  If only she had wings. She would fly right back to New York, and Granger . . .

  Oh, what on earth was she thinking? She didn’t belong there, in dirty, noisy, crowded New York City, in that cramped apartment ridden with mouse droppings.

  This was home.

  Yes. This opulent European palace—filled with the trappings of wealth and a staff of servants trained to cater to her every whim—was home.

  And Remi . . .

  Well, Remi was royalty. He understood what Granger Lockwood did not. He might not be in love with Emmaline—nor she with him—but his heartfelt televised plea rang in her ears.

  Perhaps, in time, they would grow to love each other. Just as their parents had. Just as countless royals had before them.


  There were, after all, viable reasons for arranged marriages.

  Yes—and one of them is to keep the bloodline pure. In which case Remi and I already have one strike against us.

  But nobody had to know that her firstborn wasn’t Remi’s child.

  Nobody other than the two of them.

  And Brynn Halloway.

  And of course Granger.

  But Granger would be relieved to have the burden of fatherhood lifted . . .

  Wouldn’t he?

  Turmoil bubbled within her. She simply wasn’t sure. About Granger. About Remi. About anything—including what she wanted.

  “Gee, what took you so long?” Granger asked, his voice laced with irony. He certainly hadn’t expected her for another hour—maybe two, depending on whether he’d interrupted the REM stage when he’d roused her earlier.

  “Wonderful to see you, too, darling.” Brynn bent over the booth and kissed him on the cheek. “Though you have looked better.”

  “You never have, of course.” He wiped the inevitable red lipstick stain from his cheek with a Dunkin’ Donuts napkin.

  “Thank you. You’re sweet.” Brynn smiled smugly, glancing at her reflection in the plate glass window before settling across the table from him. “We need to talk, but first . . . are you going to buy me a cup of coffee for my trouble?”

  “I thought you didn’t drink coffee anymore.”

  “I don’t. Unless it’s”—she examined her Rolex—“ten to three in the morning and I’ve spent the last hour and a half unexpectedly flying to Rhode Island.”

  “What happened—did somebody remove the sleeping quarters from your private jet?” he asked, rising as she yawned into her scarlet fingernails.

  “No, but I couldn’t fall asleep. I was too worried about you.”

  He shrugged and reached into his pocket, counting change. It was mostly pennies and nickels.

  “Here.” Brynn produced a twenty dollar bill from her bottomless brown leather Dooney and Bourke wallet. “Buy yourself a couple of crullers with the change. You haven’t eaten all day.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  He had to admit, she was right. His stomach was painfully hollow, but he hadn’t realized he was hungry until she said it.